Cheney's Cop-Killer Rap

If
you can't handle the truth, be very afraid of W.'s running mate.

Why was Dick Cheney one of 21
representatives to vote against a ban on so-called "cop-killer
bullets"?

Al
Gore's surrogates would have you believe that Cheney supports the
murder of police officers. In truth, the Cheney vote was a vote for
truth over lies, and principle over expediency. There never has been
such a thing as a "cop-killer bullet." That the issue ever arose in
Congress shows that modern Washington is just as susceptible to
believing impossible things as was the English Parliament that made it
a felony to use "Witchcraft, Inchantment, Charm or Sorcery, to tell
where Treasure is to be found, or where Things lost or Stolen may be
found."

The story of the nonexistent "cop-killer bullet" actually begins in
1976 in Massachusetts, when a handgun-confiscation initiative was
defeated in a landslide. Then in 1982 in California, a handgun
"freeze" initiative also lost overwhelmingly. The gun-prohibition
lobbies began to realize that they would have to work more
incrementally, rather than pushing for prohibition outright. (Hence
the current Gore proposal to require everyone to get a federal license
to buy a handgun. Once the licensing system is in place, it can gradually
be made ever-more difficult, by administrative fiat, for
anyone to actually get a license.)

The prohibition lobbies also realized that the police were one of
their worst problems. While a few police chiefs or sheriffs could
always be found to support prohibition, the vast majority of police —
both commanders and line officers — were "pro-gun," and extremely
skeptical of gun control. Something had to be done to turn the police
(or at least their Washington lobbyists) against the National Rifle
Association.

The something, ironically, was an obscure type of ammunition invented
by police officers two decades before. These bullets were known as KTW
bullets, after the initials of the three persons involved in law
enforcement who invented them for use in SWAT teams. While ordinary
bullets have a lead core, the KTW bullets used denser metals, and
therefore had greater penetration ability. The bullets had not been
available for sale to the general public since the 1960s.

Despite the fact that the KTW bullets were not on sale in any gun
store in the United States, NBC television discovered them in 1982 and
announced that they were a tremendous threat to police lives. The
"cop-killer bullet" scare was born.

With the kind of self-righteous ignorance that characterizes most of
the old media's handling of the gun issue, the bullets were described
as "Teflon bullets." Supposedly, the Teflon coating allowed the bullet
to penetrate a policeman's "bulletproof vest." Actually, a Teflon
coating is applied to the outside of a wide variety of ordinary
ammunition, and has nothing to do with better penetrability. Instead,
the Teflon reduces the lead abrasion caused by the bullet's movement
down the barrel of the gun.

Penetrability, on the other hand, is based on the kinetic energy
carried by the bullet. Kinetic energy, as every first-year physics
student knows (perhaps nobody in the old media ever took physics) is
the product of velocity and mass. (More precisely, kinetic energy is
equal to 1/2 the mass times the velocity squared. Penetrating ability
is also influenced by the shape of the bullet and the hardness of its
surface.) Since tungsten has a higher density than lead, a
tungsten-core bullet will have greater mass, and therefore greater
kinetic energy, and therefore greater penetrability.

As
actual police officers know, the vests that they wear are
"bullet-resistant," not "bullet-proof." The body armor comes in a
variety of grades. The higher the grade, the bulkier and less
comfortable the armor is to wear, but the more ammunition that it can
stop.

At
the top of the scale is Threat Level IVA armor, which is ceramic, and
can stop even a high-powered rifle bullet. It takes a very strong vest
to stop a big-game hunting-rifle bullet: The bullet travels at very
high velocity, due to the long length of the rifle barrel; and has a
high mass, since a hunting-rifle bullet must be large enough to bring
down a moose, elk, or other large mammal. The main people who wear
Threat Level IV or IVA ceramic hard armor are SWAT team members on
high-risk missions.

Far more common for ordinary police use is "soft" body armor made from
Kevlar, and rated at Threat Levels II through IIIA. Level II armor can
stop some handgun ammunition, while Level IIIA can stop almost any
handgun bullet. Handgun ammunition is much easier to stop than rifle
ammunition, since the handgun barrel is much shorter (less velocity)
and handgun bullets are smaller (less mass).

The gun-prohibition ventriloquists and their old-media dummies had
worked the first stage of the scam: warning the public about the
"cop-killer bullet." Never mind that it wasn't on sale. Never mind
that there had never been a known instance of a police officer being
shot at, let alone killed, with such a bullet.

The bait was set. Now for the switch. Rep. Mario Biaggi (who would
later leave Congress due to felony convictions involving extensive
personal corruption) introduced a bill to outlaw all ammunition that
could penetrate soft-body armor. This could lead to ban on most rifle
ammunition, since most rifle ammo will penetrate soft-body armor.
Soft-body armor is designed to stop handgun ammunition, not rifle
ammunition.

When this fact was pointed out, the old media and the gun-prohibition
lobbies sneered that NRA members wanted to go deer-hunting with
cop-killer Teflon bullets.

As
the debate continued, the constant repetition of the phrase
"cop-killer bullet" helped drive a wedge between the NRA and many
police officers. The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) — the largest
rank-and-file police group in the U.S. — had been an enthusiastic
supporter of the McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act
(FOPA), a bill to reform abusive BATF enforcement of the 1968 Gun
Control Act.

But after the "cop-killer" controversy, the police group's director
switched sides, and announced that FOPA was a grave threat to the
lives of police officers. FOPA itself had nothing to do with KTW or
Teflon ammunition, but the FOP director's broader point was his anger
over the "cop-killer bullet" issue.

More generally, the issue placed the NRA on the defensive, and impeded
the NRA's goal of pushing FOPA into law. Many of the NRA's friends in
Congress and White House quietly insisted that something be done to
get rid of the issue.

Handgun Control, Inc., and the rest of the panic-and-prohibition
lobbies (on many issues besides guns) are quite right to be worried
about Dick Cheney. It's not primarily about Cheney's voting record —
which on gun issues in the House of Representatives was very similar
to Rep. Al Gore's. It's not even primarily about banning rifle
ammunition, although Cheney's election would probably spell the end of
that particular issue.

The much greater problem is that Cheney is very smart; he learns the
facts; he doesn't fall for the old media's summary of an issue; and
(in great contrast to Bob Dole), his idea of a good law is not
"anything that makes a sufficient number of lobbying factions happy."
Most dangerously of all, from HCI's point of view, Cheney will have
the president's respect and his attention.

Now imagine the situation 18 months from now. The prohibition groups
have just worked the old media into a tizzy over "laser shotguns" or
"handgun-mounted grenade launchers" or "invisible ammunition" or some
other nonexistent product causing a nonexistent problem. The
president's pollsters explain that 84 percent of the public says "yes"
when asked "Do you want the government to do something about laser
shotguns and invisible ammunition in the hands of violent criminals,
psychopaths, and foreign terrorists?"

If
you think this situation is unlikely, just remember the spring of
1989, when so-called "semiautomatic assault weapons" were all the
rage. Only cosmetically were "assault weapons" different from other
guns. Indeed, the 1994 federal ban focused exclusively on cosmetics
(e.g., accessories like bayonet lugs, or a second grip on a rifle that
protrudes "conspicuously"). The guns do not fire faster than other
guns, and their ammunition power is on the low end for rifles. Police
statistics show that the guns are rarely used in crime. But President
George Bush III didn't know any better, so he proclaimed that he too
was against "automated attack weapons." Dan Quayle didn't know any
better either, and even if he had, President Bush wouldn't have paid
attention to him.

But in 2001, consider what will happen when Vice President Cheney
schedules a meeting with the second President Bush, to explain to the
president that there's no such thing as "invisible ammunition" or
"laser shotguns" — or "bubblegum-flavored chewing tobacco" or
"nicotine beer" or "a nationwide network of hate groups which
specialize in lynching transvestites" — or whatever other phony terror
some lobbying groups and their media dupes have fabricated.

For the many prohibition groups who can't handle the truth, Dick
Cheney could be the worst thing that ever happened to them.

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